


Slayer's Break

by Systlin



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-16
Updated: 2016-12-16
Packaged: 2018-09-08 22:40:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8866243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Systlin/pseuds/Systlin
Summary: Poor Percy just really got the crap beat out of him during the Rimefang battle. Vex feels...more strongly about this than she really should.





	1. Chapter 1

The only problem with healing magic, Percy reflected blearily, was that it brought you back to consciousness immediately. This gave you plenty of time to feel everything, such as smashed bones snapping back into place and re-knitting and dislocated joints resetting themselves. It didn’t really _hurt,_ strangely enough; healing magic or potions dulled the pain instantly, which was a mercy, because he was certain that if he’d been able to feel his shoulder re-setting itself and his broken ribs popping back into place he’d have been screaming himself hoarse.

He blinked dully for a moment; it was, unfortunately, the face of Grog that swam into view, and the bitter herbal taste of a healing potion on the back of his tongue told him what had brought him back after the damned dragon had hammered him into the ground. He winced as several more broken ribs popped back into place and something crunched back into alignment in his left hip. Still no pain, but there was always a part of your mind that knew it _should_ hurt.

Also, he wasn’t dead, so things must not be completely fucked yet.

“Ow.” He managed weakly. “What happened?” He made a motion to rise, winced, and winced again as Grog helped tug him up to a sitting position. Not ten feet from them was the great white bulk of the dragon, unmoving. “Oh. We killed it. Good.” There was a cracked depression in the ice and stone of the cavern floor a few feet away, shaped rather worryingly like himself. There was rather a lot of blood about, and Percy knew most of it was probably his; he could feel his clothes soaked through in more than one place. Interestingly, there were also scorch marks and melted ice, and whatever had happened there Percy was very thankful that he hadn’t been conscious to feel it. His coat was slightly scorched in places; he scowled at it.  

The healing potion had presumably done its work replenishing any lost blood, but he was still slightly lightheaded and rising brought a wave of dizziness. “Can we harvest this bastard for scrap and get out of here?”

The warm tingle of the healing potion faded, and the pain from his remaining injuries hit full force. Gritting his teeth, Percy groped around for his glasses, found them, and slid them back into place. The cavern came into better focus, save for one line running right through the middle of his left eye; he scowled at the crack in the lens.

 He appeared to be very behind everyone else; Zahra was already working at the dragon, and Vex was helping. Still sitting, Percy drew the Pepperbox and inspected it anxiously; aside from a few minor dings that he could buff out later, though, the gun was undamaged. Bad News had similarly escaped any major damage, and he breathed a sigh of relief.

Over by the corpse of the dragon, Vex and Zahra were finishing up. As they did, Vex glanced over towards him and Grog. The look of immediate horror was both gratifying and somewhat worrying as she hurried over.

“Oh, _darling.”_ She dropped to her knees beside him. She looked rather worse for the wear too, but she was moving just fine. A little knot in his chest unwound. “Your poor face!”

“Oh, hell.” Percy gingerly prodded the bridge of his nose, and winced at the spike of pain. “Is it really that bad? I _liked_ my face.”

“Here.” She laid a hand on his cheek, and a little wrinkle appeared between her eyebrows as she concentrated intensely. There was a warm green-gold pulse of energy. Percy felt a strange crunch as the cartilage in his nose straightened and re-knit, and as the swelling subsided it was suddenly much easier to breathe. “There, darling. That’s better. Come on. We need to get out of here.”

Percy wholeheartedly agreed with that. He climbed (somewhat stiffly and painfully) to his feet, leaning on both Vex and the wall. He really could use another good dose or six of healing energy, he knew, but they were all nearly tapped out on spells and the gods only knew what other sort of horrible fortune they would run into before they got a chance to rest.

“Are you all right?” Vex was still hovering at his side.

“I’ll be fine.” He forced a little smile. “Come on.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "I am made of bruises and broken bones right now." -Talisen, when they got back to the Slayer's Take after the fight.

Their horses were, somewhat surprisingly, perfectly fine. With the looming specter of fighting a dragon lifted, the mood as they mounted up and started back in the direction of Vasselheim was considerably lighter. Lyra chattered excitedly to anyone nearby; Vex tuned her out after a bit, occasionally nodding or humming agreeably. Scanlan was riding closest to the wizard and occasionally allowing her to draw him into conversation. Whenever he spoke, Vex couldn’t tell if the gnome was actually being friendly or simply dryly sarcastic.

She dropped back a bit, letting Lyra and Scanlan take point and, more importantly, riding near enough to Zahra to chat amiably. Grog’s poor warhorse was lagging slightly behind, which Vex couldn’t honestly blame it for. Percy was bringing up the rear. Vex eyed him with some concern; the poor man had taken a worse beating from the dragon than any of them, and only barely survived it.

For just a moment, an echo of the fear and rage she’d felt when she’d seen him slammed into the ice by the dragon’s massive tail stirred again. He’d looked very small as the tail rose, a crumpled bloodstained body crushed into the ice, and for a terrible yawning moment she’d been certain that they’d lost him, that _she’d…_

 _He’s fine. He’s here and alive and whole._ Well. Mostly, anyway; Percy, per usual, was doing his level best to hide his pain, but she could see how tight his face was under the bruises, the way his teeth clenched whenever he moved and the tension around his eyes. He was white-knuckling the reins, and using his free hand to steady himself by clutching the edge of his saddle. Vex resolved to keep an eye on him; she knew Percy well enough to know the fool man would drop over out of sheer stubbornness before he looked after himself.   

They were a few hours into the ride before the tension lines in Percy’s forehead began to furrow even further, and he began lagging behind even more. Once or twice, Vex’s sharp ears caught a hiss of pain as his horse hopped over a fallen log.

She caught Zahra’s eyes, and flicked them back. The tiefling glanced back, and a little wrinkle of concern appeared between her eyebrows. She nodded slightly, and Vex kneed her horse forwards.

“Lyra?” She said sweetly.

The wizard jumped a bit and looked owlishly around. “What? Yes!”

“I feel like we should maybe stop here for a bit, darling.”

“Oh? But it’s only afternoon! We can get a lot further yet before dark. When we killed the warg we had to ride all day and nearly got back the same night…”

“Yes, well.” Vex cut her off. “A dragon’s a bit bigger than a warg, dear. I could use a rest, I know, to grab a bite and maybe bandage up a bit? I’m sure the rest of us feel the same.” She nodded backwards, and Lyra twisted awkwardly in the saddle, as if slightly afraid that the motion would unseat her. Vex had noticed that the little wizard sat rather like a bag of grain in the saddle; she doubted that Lyra spent much time riding. “And I’m knackered. I could use a nap, to be honest. And there’s no rush getting back, right?”

“Oh. Well.” Lyra brightened up. Vex rather felt sorry for the woman; she was trying her best, she really was, and she seemed a sweet girl really. “I am a bit hungry….right! As leader I say that we can camp here, and then be off bright and early tomorrow.”

“Well. Not _here.”_ Vex squinted ahead. “There. There’s a clearing there where a big tree fell. That’s a good place.”

 “Right! We’ll camp there!” Lyra beamed. “I think I’m getting the hang of this leader thing, I feel like we’ve really come together as a team today…”

It took them a bit to stop and make camp. Grog fussed with the fire until Lyra helpfully pointed at it and started it with a firebolt, nearly singeing Grog’s eyebrows off.

Vex did not miss the way Percy hissed through his teeth in pain as he slowly and stiffly dismounted, with none of his usual grace. As Zahra rolled out bedrolls, she descended on him.

“All right.” She said. “Come sit down, and let’s have a look at you.”

“I’m…”

“You are not fine.” She took him by the hand and led him over to the massive log of the fallen tree, noting that he was limping heavily on his left side. “If I’d taken that hit I wouldn’t be fine. None of us would be. Now sit.” She pointed.

He sat.

“Good boy. Now, off with this lot. Let me see how bad it is. Where’s it hurt?”

She saw the last remnants of his stubborn façade crumble, and he slumped a little and began shucking out of his coat. “It would be easier, really, to list the places it _doesn’t_ hurt.” His voice was still dry, but there was a weary note underneath it.

He laid his coat aside on the log. His waistcoat quickly followed. She had to help him with his shirt and the toughened leather armor underneath the shirt; when he tried to raise his left arm above a certain point his face went white and he couldn’t completely muffle the pained groan.

“Oh, _darling.”_ She murmured, horrified, as the last layer came off.

Below the neck, he was one great mass of ugly purple-black and yellow-gray bruising. The healing potion Grog had given him had closed any dangerous wounds, but there were still a multitude of scrapes and raw abrasions. She’d seen the blow that Rimefang had dropped him with, and she knew that it must have broken multiple bones. Again, the healing potion had magically set and superficially mended the very worst of the damage, but he must still be in a great deal of pain. He was breathing shallowly and carefully; she was willing to bet money that he still had cracked ribs.

“Not going to lie.” He closed his eyes as she very gently probed at his left shoulder; it must have been shattered by Rimefang’s blow. The healing potion had reset the break and knit it loosely, but it was still swollen, bruised black, and likely seamed with hairline fractures. “I’ve felt better.”

“You poor thing.” She said with feeling as she reached down into the warm tingling well of energy inside herself, drawing on the abundant life-energy of the forest around them. She closed her eyes as she poured a Cure Wounds into his shoulder, concentrating hard. Healing was always a strange sensation; for a moment, you could almost see _into_ the person you were healing, and feel the _wrongness_ of where they were hurt.

Vex wasn’t as good at healing as Pike. Pike had restored Vax’s ruined foot; Vex could simply patch bits up. She bit her lip and concentrated hard, screwing her face up, and slowly forced that warm green-gold energy into the places of _wrongness_ in Percy’s bone and flesh. Slowly, she felt them mend and fade, and a little of the tension drained out of Percy. When she took her hands away, he carefully raised his arm again and rotated his shoulder. He still froze and winced when he got above a certain point, but he could move it further and didn’t seem to be in as much pain. The swelling had subsided a bit, and the bruising had faded from purple-black to a sullen grayish-yellow.

“Thank you.” His voice was sincere. “That’s much better.”

“I’m not done yet, darling. Sit still.”  

His ribs _were_ still cracked. She used two more Cure Wounds spells on them, knitting the bone as well as she could and easing the bruising and swelling. By the time she finished he was breathing more easily. She spent the last of her magic on one final Cure Wounds to his left leg; his hip must have been badly broken.  

Finally she sat back. “I think that’s as much as I can do today.” He looked better; the bruising had faded somewhat, and the stiff tension of his body had eased.

He gave her little smile. He was still hurting; she could still see it in his eyes and the set of his shoulders, but he was moving much more easily as he reached for his armor and clothes. “Thank you. That’s…I feel much better. Thank you.”

She patted him on the cheek. “Just take it easy. I can hear a stream not far off; I’m going to go see if I can find a willow tree. I wager we’ve all got a few aches that some willow could help.” Impulsively, she leaned over and gave him a peck on the forehead. “And don’t you go getting smashed up by a dragon again. I’m out of healing for the day.”

The little smile widened, and for just a moment a spark of something warm and fond cut through the weary pain in his eyes. “I’ll do my best.”

“Good.” She felt an answering little ripple of warmth in her own chest, and for a moment allowed herself to simply watch him move; Percy was normally so proper and buttoned-up that she rarely got a chance like this. Even bruised and battered as he was, it was a pleasant view. Percy wasn’t a heavily built man, but he wasn’t exactly skin and bones either; he probably had a good fifty pounds over her brother and was broader through the shoulder.

Of course, he was also several inches taller than Vax. People expected half-elves to be compact and wiry, but they tended to expect a human man of Percy’s height to be big all around. Percy, though, was all long, lean lines. Still, he spent far too much time at his forge to not have built a little muscle. What there was of him was rather nicely shaped, and his shoulders were _very_ nice indeed.  

He glanced at her; she winked before sauntering off, and had the satisfaction of watching him blush.

There was a stubby willow growing along the stream, along with some wild mint. Vex cut several slender green branches and picked a fistful of mint. As she headed back to camp she stripped the leaves off of the willow branches and discarded them.

Zahra had the bedrolls set out. Lyra was fussing about with some rations, with Scanlan helping. Vex, who’d eaten Scanlan’s cooking before, winced. Grog was simply gnawing on some dried meat. Percy was sitting near the fire, carefully and meticulously cleaning Bad news.

Vex breezed over, swiped the battered teapot off of the fire, and set about brewing some willow tea, adding the mint to mask the bitter taste of the willow bark.

Everyone accepted some gratefully; aches or no, it was nice to have something hot to drink. Percy took seconds.

Much later, as she sat on watch, Vex fiddled absently with her small dagger as she watched the last light of sunset fade into night. The rest of the party had turned in early, and the normal quiet of a forest at night was broken by Grog’s grinding snore. Lyra was snoring too, more quietly, as was Percy. Zahra and Scanlan slept quietly.

She eyed Percy. It was chilly again tonight, and he had the blankets of his bedroll pulled clear up to his chin. The firelight glinted orange and yellow off of the silver-white of his hair, and gleamed off of the cracked lens of his glasses, folded and laid neatly beside his pillow. The pepperbox lay next to the glasses, where it would be within easy reach at a moment’s notice. Vex knew that he’d cleaned, oiled, and loaded it before going to sleep. He always did. All of them slept with their weapons in the field.

_A roar of rage, the dim light fracturing off of white scales as the massive tail whipped around and down, the shattering crack as it slammed down on Percy even as he tried to throw himself out of the way, the terrible splintering crunch as ice and stone shattered from the force of the blow. Her stomach dropping, hollow with horror as the tail rose, leaving the motionless body hammered into the ice, and she wanted to scream, how could he have survived that, she wanted to scream, no, no, you can’t, no, not him, not him…_

Vex was no fool. She liked to flirt with pretty people. Who didn’t? It was a good bit of fun for everyone concerned. After Percy had been with them for long enough to become comfortable, she’d slipped into the habit almost automatically. Percy had seemed rather surprised at first, but had quickly started giving back as good as he got, seeming to enjoy the give and take of a bit of light harmless flirtation as much as she did. Vex hadn’t read anything into it; it was simply a bit of fun between friends.

And, well. He was witty, and frighteningly intelligent, and really quite funny, and relentlessly charming when he wished to be. And all the same, there was an interesting sort of edge to him, a hard glitter to his smile sometimes in a fight that intrigued her. And, of course, he was always  _so_ kind, and he always gave her such lovely things, and never with a hint of expectation of anything in return...

She remembered his wild gleeful laughter in the dragon’s lair as Rimefang reeled back from the fire and smoke of the bomb Percy had built with a roar of pain, the wild grin as he’d braced himself against the recoil of Bad News.

She found that image more appealing than she probably should. But then, she found him appealing in general. Greatly so, in fact.

If he’d not been a close friend and a member of their party, she’d probably have bedded him months ago.

_...The roaring explosion and brilliant flash of flame as Lyra’s fireball detonated. Rimefang screamed in pain and outrage, and Vex thought fear would choke her as the force of the blast flung Percy’s motionless body onto his back, limp and lifeless, and if he hadn’t already been dead that surely must have killed him, no, gods no, Lyra no…_

In his sleep, Percy rolled over. There was a sudden flinch, a muffled curse from under the blankets, and he lifted his head slightly from his pillow and gingerly shifted over to lie flat on his back. Vex had broken ribs before, and she winced in sympathy. She almost reached for the cold dregs of the willow tea to offer them over, but she needn’t have; the soft snoring resumed almost immediately. 

She sighed to herself. A desperate battle and the barely-avoided specter of one’s imminent mortality always got the blood pumping, and she was…well, she was dwelling on some decidedly lascivious thoughts at the moment. Even if the idea of a teammate and friend didn’t raise the possibility of so much _complication,_ though, the poor man definitely wasn’t up for her dragging him into the trees at the moment.

However pleasant the idea of having him up against a tree was. They’d have to be quiet, of course; Vex was generally unashamed when it came to sex, but she simply liked to keep her personal matters to herself, thank you very much. She wondered briefly if he’d be the sort of lover who liked to talk during, or if he’d be nearly silent, save for…

She sighed again, pulling her thoughts back from that vein of musing. That could make things so _complicated._ Vex didn’t like complications. Not of that sort.

But…

She watched Percy sleep, and remembered again the sick sinking feeling when she’d watched him go down, the scream that caught in her throat, the _regret…_

Well, maybe things were _already_ complicated.

_Well, shit._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Orion once noted that Vax weighs about 140 pounds, and Percy weighs around 190. But, well, people expect half-elves to be wiry, and Percy's like a head taller than the twins.


End file.
